Secretary-General Appoints Zachary Muburi-Muita of Kenya Head of United Nations Office to African Union

Secretary-General Appoints Zachary Muburi-Muita of Kenya

Head of United Nations Office to African Union

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has today announced the appointment of Zachary Muburi-Muitaof Kenya as the Head of the United Nations Office to the African Union which was established by the General Assembly on 1 July 2010.

Mr. Muburi-Muitabrings to this position many years of considerable diplomatic, political, civil-military and management skills and experience from his work with the Kenyan Government, which he joined in 1982. His involvement in various initiatives related to the East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD), building blocs of the African Union, will be useful in the United Nations efforts in building stronger ties with the African Union and other sub-regional organizations.

Since 2006, Mr. Muburi-Muita has served as Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. In that capacity, Mr. Muburi-Muitaserved as the Vice-President of the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and in January 2010 he was elected President of the United Nations High-Level Committee on South-South Cooperation, which oversees the intergovernmental review and policymaking of South-South Cooperation.

Prior to his appointment in 2006 as Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Mr. Muburi-Muita served his Foreign Service in numerous roles, including as High Commissioner to the United Republic of Tanzania, and previously Principal Counsellor at the Kenya Embassy in Israel, Head of the Middle East Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Head of the Americas Division, Senior Assistant Secretary and Acting Head of the Asia and Australasia Division. He has also served in various capacities in Kenya’s missions abroad, including in the Netherlands and the Sudan. Between 1998 and 2001, he was seconded to the faculty of the National Defense College.

Mr. Muburi-Muita was educated at the University of Nairobi, the University of Khartoum and Oxford University. Mr. Muburi-Muita was born in 1957 and is married with three children.

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